PECHANGA: Counting Crows come to Temecula Nov. 17

Sometime after sound check before every show, Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz sends out a text.

It’s a simple question about what songs to play that night that goes to his band mates, road crew and all of the opening bands and “basically anyone who is stuck on tour with us,” Duritz said in a recent telephone interview.

That’s how the set list comes together each night. If there’s a request for something that hasn’t been played in a while, Duritz makes a note to run through the song at the following day’s sound check.

While the multiplatinum band had megahits with songs such as “Mr. Jones,” “A Long December,” “Round Here” and “Hanginaround,” it’s not a given that those songs will make their way into the band’s performance at Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula on Saturday, Nov. 17.

“I feel like you owe your audience all your passion in a show. I don’t think you owe them any particular songs. I think you owe them a good show — a set list, that’s yours to make,” Duritz said.

That approach, a demonstration of the band’s independent spirit and not a snub of its fans, has helped make the Counting Crows' catalog timeless and not tiring for the band’s members, which include Duritz, David Bryson, Charles Gillingham, Dan Vickrey, Jim Bogios, David Immergluck and Millard Powers.

“If you’re doing that, if you feel like you have to play a song no matter what, after a while you just wouldn’t want to play that song anymore,” he said.

A prolific songwriter, Duritz reveres all of the songs he writes.

“When we make a record, all of those songs are important to me, or they wouldn’t be on the record. I really love all the songs and I don’t value one above another. The record company might pick one of those songs and want to make a single out of it, but that’s just a song that’s sent to radio, it doesn’t make it better or worse,” he said.

The band’s fierce independence is what Duritz is most proud of throughout he band’s career. When they were starting out in the Bay Area two decades ago and the major labels came calling, the band turned down money to keep creative control.

“We really used that, from the very beginning, from how we made our very first album to everything we did after that. We ran ourselves like an independent band. Maybe we would have been a bigger band if we hadn’t, but those decisions seemed right for us at the time,” Duritz said.